


Angels Watch Me Through the Night

by Cumberbatch Critter (ivelostmyspectacles)



Series: Ignoct Week 2017 [5]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Coping, Cuddling & Snuggling, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 18:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11674479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivelostmyspectacles/pseuds/Cumberbatch%20Critter
Summary: and wake me with the morning light.Ignis gathers him against his side and coaxes him to lay down again. Noctis goes, curling himself against Ignis’s body and trying not to cry. He can’t help a few tears, though, so he’s failed on that account too.Day Three of Ignoct Week! Prompt:Sleep





	Angels Watch Me Through the Night

_"They've promised that dreams can come true, but forget to mention that nightmares are dreams, too." - Oscar Wilde_

 

The nightmares come thick and fast when they settle down in Cartanica. Not that they hadn’t been prior, but being well on the path to Tenebrae and hearing every passenger’s thoughts on Lady Lunafreya sets them off further. He dreams that he cannot save her– or worse, that he can. And then he wakes up and realizes it’s all been a dream and rinse and repeat, all the way to Cartanica. The details fill in there. Her hair as it cascades around her. Blood staining her dress. The feel of her hand just out of grasp, the displacement of air he cannot hold. The tears in her eyes, on his cheeks. A rasp in her breathing, her body floating out to sea.

He wakes up choking on the scent of sylleblossoms, and bangs his head against the bottom of the bunk above him. He prays to God that Gladio isn’t there. He isn’t sure he can deal with him just then. But there is no movement, no sound save the pounding in his ears and his head and his heart, and when he pays more attention, Gladio’s shoes aren’t with their things. Just Prompto’s, and his, and Ignis’s.

“Noct?”

He executes a full-body cringe, and then turns to look at Ignis. He’s propped up on an elbow, watching him. The glasses are absent and the injury still looks hellish. Noctis’s heart, already aching, feels as though someone reaches in and _twists_ , and tears well in his eyes before he can blink them away.

“Are you alright?”

He has to blink again, and swallow before he can trust himself to speak. Even then, he thinks it comes out too weak. Ignis is sure to notice. “Yeah, fine. Sorry to wake you, I just… hit my head.”

Ignis seems to hesitate– he has been doing that a lot, these past few weeks– and then pushes himself up to sit. “I wasn’t asleep.”

“Oh.” Noctis slumps against the bedframe and tries to keep his voice down. He can hear Prompto’s very faint snore from the bunk above Ignis. Now he hesitates before asking, “are _you_ okay?” Ignis would likely never give him the truth, and especially not now, but at least he might give him a version of it.

He does. “I am. It seems that sleeping has… become difficult since this injury.” Noct wonders if he can feel his gaze on him, because he continues. “Usually, we sleep at nightfall, but now I see mostly darkness all the time. My sleep schedule has not… adjusted. I’ve been tired during the day, a lot,” he admits, and again the crushing feeling in Noct’s chest surges. “But we have to keep moving, so I rest when I can.”

All this renewed pain and hardship. “Ignis…”

“Not tonight, Noct,” Ignis interrupts. He has said it before. Noct reckons that he’ll say it’ll again, and again, never let him properly apologize for what was done. He knows Ignis would do it all over again. _He_ wouldn’t, though. He would do anything to see the people he loved and cared for safe. He hasn’t accomplished it so far and it no longer stings; it’s killing him instead and he can admit it to no one. Not even Ignis, who has his own burdens to bear now, because of him.

He sighs. It shakes. So do his hands as he shoves his face into them and he tries to rub the sleep and the tears from his eyes. He wants it all to go away. He wants to go to sleep and not wake up as much as he doesn’t want to ever sleep again.

Ignis carefully takes a step in the distance between them; Noct reaches out and catches his questing hand more on instinct than anything. It’s not instinct that doesn’t let him let go.

“I’m sorry,” Ignis says, as he sinks onto the mattress next to Noctis, and Noctis barks a short, sharp laugh.

“You have the audacity to tell _me_ not to apologize and then you go and do it? That’s not fair.” He can’t help but be sarcastic, and laugh at himself. If he doesn’t laugh…

“I can’t ease your burdens, Noct.” And Noctis feels himself sag as Ignis continues. “Not this time. But I will continue to fight for you, if you’ll have me and I’ll–”

Noct turns and presses his forehead against Ignis’s bicep, and desperately squeezes his eyes shut. “Of course.” His voice comes out barely above a croak. “I’ll always need you. I’ll never stop needing you.” It’s selfish, and he has no right to be selfish, _especially not now_ , but he can’t hold it in any longer. Not with Ignis sitting here, still holding onto his hand and promising himself to him even _after_ losing his sight, nearly losing his _life_ – he would still sit there and give him that vow, and Noctis is overwhelmed. He has lost his dad. He has lost Luna. He _can’t_ lose Ignis, please _God_ , he cannot even _imagine_ –

If he feels weak, it’s because he is. And in that moment, he can’t bring himself to be anything else but.

(Maybe Ignis needs to hear it, too. Maybe he needs to know that things haven’t changed, here, even though things _have_ changed in general. Maybe he needs to hear that Noct won’t leave him behind as much as Noct desperately needs to hang onto him and not let go. Probably not. But it helps him stomach being so _transparent_ , if only for a moment.)

Ignis gathers him against his side and coaxes him to lay down again. Noctis goes, curling himself against Ignis’s body and trying not to cry. He can’t help a few tears, though, so he’s failed on that account too. At least he can hide his face, head tucked up beneath his chin and his face turned into his chest. Neither of them say anything. There isn’t much to say, anyway. Ignis rubs circles onto his back and can probably feel the hitch in Noctis’s breathing. If he does, he still doesn’t say anything.

Sleep comes quicker than he expects. He falls asleep still curled into Ignis, still with his arm around him, lulled into false security by the pressure and warmth and soothing repetition of the hand against his back. He doesn’t dream, and that is perhaps a miracle in itself. There is security in the way that Ignis holds him and he _might_ be okay, even if it is just for a couple of hours.

 

He jerks awake when something hits the bed, nearly launches himself up or bangs his head against the underside of Ignis’s chin, he isn’t sure which. He’s instantly tense, and Ignis’s arms tighten around him.

“Hey.” Gladio’s voice. “Get up. We have to go– oh, sorry Iggy. Didn’t see you there.” Then to Noct: “We have things to do”. He goes without another word.

Maybe dreamless sleep hadn’t helped so much; Noctis’s exhale trembles as he breathes out against Ignis’s collarbone.

“Another day,” Iggy says softly, and smoothes his hand down his spine.

He tries not to sigh as he lingers just a moment longer, and then pushes himself up. “Yeah,” he agrees. Time to push on.

**Author's Note:**

> I have so many feels about Cartanica and how wrecked the trio looks when you sleep on the train X_X


End file.
